


Lines and Titles

by bexacaust



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Sibling Feelings, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 04:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8042866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexacaust/pseuds/bexacaust
Summary: “Its about Dominus.”





	Lines and Titles

_Some folks inherit star spangled **eyes**_   
_Ooh, they send you down to **war** , Lord_   
_And when you ask them, **“How much should we give?”**_   
_Ooh, they only answer more! More! **MORE!**_

“Mags.”

The massive mech turned. Rodimus looked at him for a moment, the silence swollen with something- unshed tears, unheard screams… something far worse. 

“Minimus.”

“Pardon-”

“You… you should be Minimus, for this. Armor can’t protect you from this.”

A sudden cold feeling settled in Minimus’s tanks, from within the cocoon of his armor. The towering creation stilled, seeming to settle like stagnant water; like the fading ripples of a baptism.

The chestplates hissed and creaked open, and Minimus clambered gracefully out, landing on his pedes in silence.

“I.. I need you to come to the med sector we have set up, I…”, Rodimus sighed, his hand moving out to touch Minimus’s shoulder gently- just servotips for a second of contact before falling away in second thoughts.

“Its about Dominus.”

“We have… we have news!”

“…Minimus-”

“Out, out of the way!”, stammered the short-statured mech, bolting down the hall. His pedes clattered like shaman bones, like runestones cast across a mausoleum floor. Rodimus followed, slower, his gait measured and his steps clacking loudly.

Minimus felt his spark rising in its chamber, the first tendrils of excitement curling through his lines as he ran. His brother, Dominus, he would know. He would finally know.

He burst through the doors into an empty room, with a table in the center. Ratchet looked up… then looked away with something unnameable in his optics. Something heavy, something dark.

Minimus looked down, his steps slowing, and suddenly the world was far, far to cold.

Laying as though in recharge, finally freed of his altmode. Still in death, silent and almost soft….

Lay Dominus Ambus.

“N-no.”, said Minimus in a voice that matched his name, “This cannot be… Wake him up, Ratchet. We need his information, we-”

“I’m sorry, Minimus.”, said Rodimus suddenly from behind the Enforcer, “I’m… so sorry.”

Ratchet nodded his helm, stepping around the medical slab and beelining for the door.

Minimus clutched at Ratchet’s arm, his grip nearly denting the plating. He went to speak, to plead, something but Ratchet merely shook his helm in the negative and gently pried Minimus’s servos from his armor.

With pedesteps like a funeral march, the medic left, and the pair were alone in the medibay turned morgue. Minimus turned, facing the slab his brother lay upon like a sacrificial lamb.

Like a metronome, his steps echoed louder and louder and louder. He neared, clamping his vents shut tightly as he finally stood at his brother’s side.

“Dominus.”, he said in a tight voice. Shaking, unsteady, his hand moved forward to lay on his sibling’s chestplate, the grey and dead plating. No thrum met his servotips, no spark warmed his palm.

“Dominus, please… _please.”_ , he pleaded, optic shutters whisking away telltale traces of coolant, “N-Now is not… not the time there is so much we must finish. Fix. Talk about.”

_I did all this to make you **proud,** brother._

“You need to online, immediately, I n-need to… to give you my report.”

_I wanted to make our name **shine** like **you** did._

“We must d-discuss our tactics I.. I need…”

Minimus’s servos twitched.

_“Brother, I **need** your help, **please.”**_

“I’m sorry, Minimus.”, said Rodimus from Minimus’s side, “If… if we had known… We would have tried harder, done better. Something. Anything.”

Minimus was silent, his vents clicking as they tried to open and he viciously overrode the command on his HUD.

“Stop.”

Minimus looked to Rodimus, something like fire in his optics. He opened his mouth to speak, berate, scream. He wanted to howl like the Furies, he wanted to wail like martyrs-

He wanted to mourn.

“Open your vents”

“I c-cannot.”

“Minimus. Open. Your. Vents.”

Rodimus’s voice was firm, soft and commanding. An anchor, an order to obey.

Out of instinct, Minimus did.

Cool air touched his systems, and he gagged on the sob he choked back, his backstrut groaning as he resisted the urge to curl.

“Mourn, Minimus. Let yourself mourn.”, whispered Rodimus softly, his voice warm as the lines for his flames, “You need it. The closure.”

“I-I am of the line _AMBUS_ we do not _weep_ like _sparklings_ we-”

“No, you don’t weep like a sparkling or whatever.”, said Rodimus, “But you mourn like any other mech who lost all they had. All they wanted… All the wishes they kept in bottles in the back of their processor.”

Minimus stared at Rodimus, jaw slack in shock.

“I’ve been there. Just.. trust me, it’ll be okay.”

Minimus looked back to the cold frame of his sibling, his family, the last hope he had.

_“He would still be proud of what you’ve accomplished; even if you **cry.”**_

“Would he?”

“Yeah, yeah I think so.”, said Rodimus, his smile genuine.

Minimus coughed through his vents, and hung his helm. Rodimus fell quiet, and watched dots of coolant appear on Dominus’s body as they fell from Minimus’s optics.

He did not wipe them away, he let them leak down and trace every line in the green mech’s face.

“I-I am irr-rreducible.”, choked Minimus quietly, “I c-cannot be b-broken or.. or destroyed.”

“I know.”

“B-But… I do n-not think my **_spark_** knows that, R-Rodimus.”

“Sometimes, things need to break to repair.”, said Rodimus, “Let it happen. We’ll catch the pieces… _I’ll_ catch the pieces. And I’ll help you put them together if you want me to.”

Minimus hiccuped through his vents- and his knees gave out. His elbows clattered onto the slab and a baritone sob echoed into the gloom. His servos clutched his brother now, as he buried his face against Dominus’s abdominal plating and wept. His cries were silent after the first burst of sound- he shook and shattered like windchimes in a hurricane- like church windows in a world war.

And like a **burning brand** , his family line _stung_ in his sparkchamber.

And like a **gale force wind,** his title sent him _careening_ into something grey and cold- colder than Dominus’s plating.

Like the **weight of the world,** his name _pressed_ inexorably down onto his shoulders and he feared he would finally break.

For here weeps Minimus Ambus; **_The Last of the Line Ambus._**

Dominus’s hand slid from the slab, draping off the edge and palm up.

And all was still in the world as it turned without him truly in it for the first time.


End file.
